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Thursday, September 25, 2008

Recovering from Scientology

It is hard for those who have never been intensely involved in something like the Church of Scientology to understand how difficult leaving can be.

It can be a shock. Depending on how deeply one was into Scientology, whether one was on staff or in the Sea Org, it can be quite traumatic and can take quite some time to recover.

Often, upon leaving, the newly ex-Scientologist still feels that they are "a Scientologist". If the person has been kicked out rather than leaving voluntarily, they may honestly intend to carefully follow all the steps so that they can get back in "good standing" with the church.

If the person is leaving voluntarily and no longer wants to be involved with David Miscavige's Church of Scientology, they may need to hide that fact, because they work for a Scientologist, or because family and friends are still Scientologists.

It can be confusing and difficult.

Here are a few suggestions that might be of help:

Stop thinking like a Scientologist.

This may be the most important first step. The longer and more deeply you were involved in Scientology, the harder this step will be, but it can be very helpful.

One of the major difficulties you, as an ex-Scientologist, face is integrating back into the real world. You don't know the correct terms for things, other people don't know what you're talking about. It is very much like you have just arrived on Earth from an alien planet. You're talking about "ARC" and "enturbulation" and it doesn't communicate.

Stop thinking and speaking using Scientology terms. Find out the real world way to say what you mean and use those terms. At first, you may find this quite difficult, but the rewards of doing so are tremendous. One of the side-effects of eschewing Scientology concepts and terminology is that you become free to think new thoughts. For anyone in Scientology for a long time, the experience of thinking new thoughts can be very exhilarating.

Stop following church rules and mandates. You do not have to do things "per policy" any more. Church policy is for their benefit, not yours. You do not have to do anything the church "requires". If you need to deal with the church, find out the standard, real world way of doing it, and do it that way.

An important part of this is: Do not disconnect from your family and friends. While they will undoubtedly be forced to disconnect from you by the Church of Scientology, you are under no such obligation. One ex-Scientologist said this when a friend tried to disconnect, "I will never disconnect from you. You will always be my friend." I think that says it very well.

One note about the myriad of "contracts" you were required to sign by the church. I am not a lawyer and so, if you have questions, get a lawyer. But, most of these "contracts" are, in my opinion, invalid. Think about it. Did you get your own copy, signed by a church representative? Was the contract binding on both parties? Were you allowed to obtain legal advice before signing? Was there quid pro quo, or was it all one sided - on you? In many people's opinion, those "contracts" were designed to threaten and intimidate Scientologists, but have little or no legal validity. It's pretty obvious these "contracts" would be very difficult to enforce in a court of law.

On a related note, those ridiculous "freeloader" debts are not in any way legal. Just imagine that going to court. "Let me get this straight, you paid this person how much per week? And now you're sending them a bill?"

Don't say anything if you don't want to.

You are under no obligation to "disclose all" to the church. If you work for a Scientologist or you have good friends and family who are still Scientologists, you don't have to "announce" your departure. That's church policy -- which you are no longer following.

Now, I have heard that, recently, David Miscavige has been declaring people "Suppressive" just for being inactive! Can you imagine anything more insane? If that's the case, even if you say nothing you may eventually end up "declared" anyway. For this reason, if you work for a Scientologist, it is important that you work to find another job as soon as you can. Staying silent about your leaving Scientology may give you the breathing room to disentangle your life from Scientologists without too much stress.

You are not "Suppressive"!

Many people who have been kicked out of Scientology, think they are "suppressive". While David Miscavige can "declare you 'Suppressive'," you are definitely not a "suppressive person". Because of Miscavige's insanity, there are probably more "declared Suppressives" than there are active Scientologists! It's insane and it's meaningless.

Scientology plays on guilt very, very heavily. Despite Hubbard's claim that "man is basically good", the real basic premise is "you are so, so guilty". To the church, your thoughts are very bad. You must spend hundreds of hours and tons of money going through endless sessions to uncover all your "evil intentions". As a result, Scientologists think that they are evil, rather than good. That's Scientology in action.

But you are not evil. You were gullible. You certainly made mistakes, but you are probably a better than average person because you wanted to help. You got involved in a group that promised to help people. It didn't, it doesn't, and you left. Seems reasonable, not bad.

Of course, Miscavige doesn't like you, but then he doesn't like anyone, so who cares?

Some people have the idea that "they failed". Somehow, they "let the church down". When you have more distance and better perspective, you will see that it was the Church of Scientology that failed -- and failed in a big way. If you feel you "failed", give it some time and you'll see the truth of it.

Get more information!

Being inside Scientology, you've been in an information vacuum. As the old joke has it, you've been a mushroom: Kept in the dark and fed a lot of fertilizer. You need information and you need lots of it.

The amount of information available is overwhelming. Some of it is quite false, much is true but unbelievable. Most of the information from the church itself is false. It can be difficult, at first, to determine which is true and which is false.

You have been told, by the Church of Scientology, that the information will kill you. This is a complete and obvious lie. People have been reading all of the available information for decades and no one has even gotten ill from it. You can read it, even the "OT confidential" information.

The information about L. Ron Hubbard, especially the information from his own letters, his own diaries and his own statements is very important. This stuff has been viciously suppressed by the church but you need to know it.

One of the things that is very helpful in recovering from Scientology is to talk to other ex-Scientologists. There are quite a number of forums where you can do this -- even anonymously. This is highly recommended. At first, you should just lurk and read. When you feel ready, make yourself known. You never have to give your real name unless you want to.

Coming out of Scientology, you are probably deeply in debt and may be looking for new employment. You may be wondering how to get your money back or perhaps just need someone to talk to who knows what you've been through. Other ex-Scientologists have been there and are eager to pass on what they've learned.

Initially, when I decided to leave, they told me to come in and "get this handled." Various Scientology friends also offered to help me "get this handled." But none of them were talking about "handling" the crimes of the church, they were taking about "handling" me. So I said "I'm not the problem, so 'handling' me won't solve anything." That was the extent of their "persuasion".

As far as I know, no one has tried to stop my blog. I'm sure they'd love to, they don't have the power, and they have much bigger fish to fry.

I had a feeling that I would break their hearts if I leave them but when I saw this http://www.mindtools.com/ I understood that they are not my friends and not evil either, they are just perfectly trained machines, so if you want to impress them, leave them and study this page mindtools.com instead of Scientology because later they will take all your money and you will still owe them 40 000 Euros if you leave after auditor's course. And in my opinion this page is giving much more benefits for free than scientology, the scientology is even against members who want to be scientologists in order to get personal benefits. The scientology doesn't want to help those who really need help, it only wants to benefit from naive and careless people, who have nothing to do in their lives. Once you prove them you have something else to do instead of cleaning the building for them, they will make you not want it. Usually they are taking young people and offering them membership to create an illusion for them that they get some sort of university studies and some financial support that is slaving them for live and they are not even aware of it. They are to devote their lives totally into scientology, they can even wake up in the middle of the night and quote the text from any page of any book they were forced to study. The study technology is very powerful, however, they lose themselfs, forget who they are or were before, sacrifice their own dreams for the benefits of the boss of scientology. They are working 40 hours per week 3-5 years, for a salary varying between 50 and 400 Euros per month. In the beginning like in every sect when they want to take in new people inside, they are promising a lot, they are even allowed to lie for the benefit of scientology, they are not permitted to talk about finances with new staff member. The person can join the Scientology even if he cannot speak any English or official language of the country where certain church is based.

While this conflicts with my advice about "Stop thinking like a Scientologist", it should be pointed out to any wavering Scientologist that all of Hubbard's "Bridge" is available outside of the Church of Scientology.

All of it.

And, contrary to the dogma of the church, the practitioners outside of the church claim to be more standard than what the church delivers. (It is pretty well known that Miscavige is squirreling the tech, so this isn't particularly shocking).

While I strongly recommend getting some distance and perspective first, rather than going in this direction, I include this information to let newly ex-Scientologists that they are not losing anything by leaving the church.

Hello Bill..thanks for share this great post about recovering from Eos.I have a question I think you might know about it.I need info about the capellan´s in the orgs. I did surf on google but can´t find nothing. Do you know where/which can give me info about some specific capellan?Thank you. ALso if you can advice me about writing a report for Ethics officer will be very appreciate. I can email you more info (just for security cant give you my email) if you need ask me some questions,thank you and keep with your GREAT work.

If you search for "Scientology chaplain" you should get more than enough information about that.

But, I don't think you really want to do that. First, there is no chaplain in any Church of Scientology. Period. No one is ever posted as Chaplain. Second, the Scientology Chaplain has absolutely no powers. The Chaplain can't actually do anything about any problems you might have. The entire purpose of the Chaplain's post is to give you "someone to talk to", so you'll "feel satisfied" and shut up. Nothing you report to a Scientology Chaplain will get handled.

So why on earth would you want to talk to the Chaplain? Waste of time.

As for Knowledge Reports, well, there is no formal format for such reports. You just write as much detail and specifics as you have, send copies to any individuals named and one to your local Ethics Officer.

But... why would you bother? By actual policy, Knowledge Reports are filed. Period. Nothing is ever done with a Knowledge Report. By Hubbard's policy, all such reports get filed.

Later, theoretically, if someone gets into a lot of trouble, and someone bothers to look in their Ethics folder, and there are lots of Knowledge Reports, well, then something might be done. But that is highly unlikely.

So, to summarize: Chaplain -- nothing will get done. Knowledge Report -- nothing will get done.

However, you should know that, in Scientology, the squeaky wheel gets shot. If you make a fuss about something wrong in Scientology, you will become a target for "handling". What you report will never get fixed, but you will become a "person of interest". Trust me, that just isn't good.

Go ahead and talk to the Chaplain. Go ahead and write Knowledge Reports. But you have been warned, it will not solve any problems -- and will probably open the door to a lot more problems for you.

REALLY???Gee.. i cant say anything!Just too sad. I believe scientology staff ONLY HELP to other scientologists... so its true.. why they should help Me regarding Im not eos and never have been..so hard, so sad.Thanks for the reply Bill.

Sooooo well written...again...my needle is floating.I have been sparating myself slowely and it has been painful. Letting go of certain friendships may be the worst anticipated.But reading this has really been a help as it describes exactly my own experience as I have extracted myself from what I have called "cult think" over the past few years. And yes...it is a shock...literally...shocking.I'm still peeling away...haven't broken all ties for personal reasons...but handling it quite well I feel. And if I suddenly "become" an "SP"...well, it certainly won't be my problem...might even be a relief!

Comments will be moderated. Have patience, I get around to it pretty quick. As a rule of thumb, I won't approve spam, off-topic, trolling or abusive stuff. The rest is usually OK. Yes, you can disagree with me.

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Frequency of articles

I know a number of people want me to write more frequently and I consider that a great compliment.

I would, but I refuse to write just for the sake of writing. I want to have something to say that is worthwhile. I've written a lot and, too often, when I'm researching something I want to say, I find I've already said it, sometimes several times.

When I started this blog, there was a lot of confusion and bad information which I intended to help clear up. I think I did that. Now there are many very fine blogs and other sources of factual information and excellent opinions. Often, when I'm researching something, I find that others have already covered it quite well.